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ETFs For the MIST Acronym (EWW, IDX, IDXJ)

Goldman Sachs (NYSE:
GS
) is known for a lot of things. For those that actively follow
emerging markets, the venerable and controversial Wall Street
bank is known as the firm that brought us the BRIC acronym and
the Next-11 group of
rapidly growing emerging economies
.

Well, the bank has another kitschy phrase for a quartet of
emerging markets. This time it's MIST, or Mexico, Indonesia,
South Korea and Turkey. It's debatable as to whether South Korea
should even be considered an emerging market any longer. In fact,
the International Monetary Fund classifies South Korea as a
developed economy.

Indonesia and Turkey both have a home in the
CIVETS acronym
, but MIST is the first memorable grouping to include Mexico, at
least as far as we can remember.

Chances are the higher risk
CAPPT acronym
will show better returns for ETF investors over time, but MIST
has its own bull case. Let's look at it through the following
ETFs.

iShares MSCI Mexico Investable Market Index Fund (NYSE:
EWW
)
Year-to-date, the iShares MSCI Mexico Investable Market Index
Fund has outperformed the S&P 500, but the ETF often takes
its cues from U.S. and then proceeds to gain more on the upside
and lose more on the downside. The downside risk is highlighted
in the statistics for the past year that show EWW down more than
4%, but the S&P 500 up more than 4%.

Investors with extremely long time horizons should note that
in the past decade, EWW has offered ten times the returns of the
S&P 500. Mexico's GDP is forecast to grow at 3.5% this year
and 3.8% next year, the government recently said. The Mexican
government cited familiar risks to its growth targets: Europe's
debt crisis and a slowing Chinese economy. Overall, the long-term
outlook with Mexico is bright, particularly if the country can
increase oil output, but there could be hiccups this year caused
by global macroeconomic headwinds.

Market Vectors Indonesia ETF (NYSE:
IDX
)
The Market Vectors Indonesia Index ETF and its rival, the iShares
MSCI Indonesia Investable Market Index Fund (NYSE:
EIDO
), have been surprising laggards in terms of emerging
Asia-Pacific ETFs this year as both are getting trounced by ETFs
tracking the Philippines, Thailand and other countries in the
region.

That's odd considering Indonesia posted fourth-quarter 2011and
full-year GDP growth rates of 6.5%, growth levels the country
hadn't seen since the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s. The
world bank sees Indonesian GDP growth at 6.5% this year, but the
Asian Development Bank sees 6.4%, down from a prior forecast of
6.5%.

Still, this is Southeast Asia's largest economy and Indonesia
has one thing in its favor: Domestic consumption. This isn't the
export-driven economy some think it is and that's not a bad thing
given the problems in Europe and economic concerns in China. Also
consider the newly minted Market Indonesia Small-Cap ETF (NYSE:
IDXJ)

IndexIQ South Korea Small Cap ETF (NYSE:
SKOR
)
If we're going to disagree with the IMF and call South Korea an
emerging market, it's certainly a conservative emerging market.
So maybe it's worth taking on some additional risk with the
IndexIQ South Korea Small Cap ETF. South Korea does have an
impressive 3.4% unemployment rate and a technology-driven
economy, which SKOR embraces with 17.2% allocation to that
sector.

SKOR has struggled this year compared to the large-cap focused
iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund (NYSE:
EWY
) as investors have shunned South Korean small-caps. SKOR could
be worth a trade if it finds support at $24. Put a stop at
$22.

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